ACTA Failure Inspires The Most Clueless Column Ever

from the do-these-people-think? dept

Last week was a good week for those who believe in the internet and culture, with the rejection of ACTA being a key moment in Europe, on par with the rejection of SOPA in the US six months earlier. Of course, as we saw with the defeat of SOPA, a number of ACTA supporters who haven't come to terms with why the public was so upset are lashing out. One of the more outspoken responses against the EU Parliament's decision came from Ewan Morrison for The Guardian, in a piece that I honestly read over a few times to make sure it wasn't satire. I don't think there's a single truly accurate statement in the entire thing. It sets the bar of misinformation so high that I think from now on I will compare any clueless article to the newly developed Ewan Morrison scale of wrongness, with this column scoring a perfect 10 out of 10. Let's explore why.

Really? So blocking an agreement that ratchets up copyright enforcement marginally, and which might criminalize a few things that are widely accepted in the public, means we're headed for cultural disaster? How so? Morrison never bothers to tell us. He makes no reference, whatsoever, to anything that's actually in ACTA, but seems to merely assume that ACTA would have magically made piracy go away and sent people back to buying CDs and DVDs... and even paying for news again. Clearly he has never read ACTA. Many of our concerns about ACTA weren't in what it would directly do, but in how it would set new floors that meant today's problems in copyright law couldn't be fixed going forward. There were also issues of vague definitions that we were afraid would be used overly broadly ("commercial scale" for example), but that wouldn't have changed the basic issues Morrison seems concerned with.

History is strewn with moments when politicians made swift decisions that led to disastrous consequences. One such moment has just occurred. In throwing out the Acta (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) bill on Wednesday, MEPs in the European parliament have unwittingly signed their countries up for a future in which internet piracy will lead to the decline of film, the novel, journalism and music on an industrial scale.

This is pretty funny, in that this was actually quite the opposite of a "swift decision." Copyright expansion, on the other hand, has a long history of government officials pushing for "swift decisions" that expand copyright law, without giving anyone any actual economic evidence that it's needed, or explaining any logical rationale. This is an issue that goes back centuries. Copyright expansion is always rushed through. We almost never see thoughtful debate on the issue. Instead, the rejection of ACTA was quite the opposite. It was a case where the public spoke up, and many MEPs actually took the time to inform themselves of the details and realized that ACTA is not a path forward. In fact, many MEPs changed their minds on the issue over the last six months as more data and evidence was presented to them. That's the exact opposite of what Morrison claims happened.

This is not scaremongering. One need only look at the stats from the US, where during the Clinton administration the internet companies were given free rein to pillage copyright material via the rushed-through Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

I have to assume that Morrison was not paying much attention during the battle over the DMCA, because it was anything but "rushed through." In fact, if Morrison actually knew anything about the history of the DMCA, and the long and hard-fought battle that went into it, he would know that it was championed by the legacy entertainment industry as the savior for their business (just as they demanded SOPA and ACTA) and it was the other side -- those who believed it would lock up culture -- who were protesting against it, and worked for years to have it repealed. For the "copyleft," the DMCA was considered a huge failure. For Hollywood it was considered a long-fought win. Pretending it was quick and a victory for the other side, is an attempt to either rewrite history, or is history written by someone who is ignorant of what really happened.

This revisionist history of the DMCA is really amusing for those of us who lived through the original battle. However, due to some misinformation, a few new copyright maximalists today pretend that the DMCA was a bad law for them, even though it was what they fought for. Of course, their real complaint is with just one aspect of the DMCA: the section 512 safe harbors, which the ISPs fought to have included in the law, because without it, folks like the RIAA and MPAA (and, apparently, Ewan Morrison) would try to sue the ISPs if they didn't wave a magic wand and stop their users from infringing. If you actually take the time to understand the safe harbors, they make perfect sense: they say that you blame the party actually infringing, not the tools they use. To people like Morrison, apparently, it's better to blame the tools. For what it's worth, the DMCA only applies in the US. If Morrison -- who appears to not live in the US -- is really so troubled by it, I'd imagine he'd have proof of services in other countries that succeed in stopping piracy because they can be sued out of existence based on their users' actions. Oh, he doesn't?

According to Robert Levine, in his book Free Ride, the music industry in the US has declined by over 55% in the last decade. Film is following with its first decline in recorded history. Journalism is heading towards "free". All because people now assume that "ripping" is the norm. If "aggregation" is OK, as the Huffington Post do it, then why should we pay for journalism? Why should we be branded pirates? This is what the European parliament has just ruled. Everything on the net, from now on, will be free.

Almost everything stated here is wrong. First of all, the music industry in the US has not declined by over 55%. The recording industry has. But the recording industry is not the music industry. The music industrycontinues to grow (and that's based on the IFPI's numbers -- yes, the industry's own numbers).

As for "film," more and more films are being produced every year, and all sorts of new business models are popping up. 10% of the movies at Sundance this year were financed by Kickstarter -- a site that was less than 3 years old at the time. Imagine how many films will be financed by new business models and services going forward?

As for journalism, that's not heading towards "free" because "ripping" is the norm, but because of the basic economics of the internet and the fact that there's a lot more competition. The attack on HuffPo is just totally misinformed, since HuffPo/AOL actually employs a ton of journalists, contrary to Morrison's claim. Besides, if "aggregation" is beating your reporting, you're doing it wrong.

And, as for that final line: "This is what the European parliament has just ruled. Everything on the net, from now on, will be free." I'm curious if Morrison can point out (1) where it says that everything online will be free and (2) where ACTA would have stopped that? Does he think that ACTA would have magically stopped fundamental economics of competition? That ACTA would have magically wiped out free content online? The failure of ACTA doesn't make content free. Morrison seems to think ACTA is something that it is not. And ACTA supporters claim that those who fought ACTA ran a misinformation campaign -- where are they denouncing Morrison's crazy claims? ACTA would not have had any impact on the online services that Morrison seems to think are the root of all of the problems in the world. It didn't address that issue at all.

As a journalist, novelist and a friend of many who "used to be" musicians, I see the wrong in this.

"This" being the strawman that Morrison just set up -- that without ACTA, everything is free. You see the wrong in a claim that you totally made up out of thin air that has no basis in reality. Kudos to you.

I defend copyright because it is the lifeblood of the creative industries and of democracy.

And yet... somehow, magically, as copyright has become less and less respected, content production has increased by orders of magnitude and creative industries have grown as well. If it's the lifeblood of creative industries, then that wouldn't be true. In other words, this claim is flat out wrong.

And, uh, copyright is the lifeblood of democracy? How so? Morrison provides no other explanation and there is none, because that's a ridiculous claim that has no basis in, well, anything. Hell, here in the US, the first major democracy, we came quite close to not having copyright law at all. No one -- on any side of this issue -- thinks that it is necessary in a democracy. You might argue that it's a good thing, or a bad thing, but no one thinks it's the lifeblood of democracy.

Other unexpected voices have joined the cause of copyright protection – Dr Dre claims there will be no future generations of rappers because of piracy and the expectation that recording artists will put their work out for free.

Hello, totally random non-sequitur. Why is Dr. Dre an "unexpected voice" in all of this? I could just as easily list off tons of musicians who claim otherwise. If we're looking at the rap world, why not talk to Chuck D or Hank Shocklee or 50 Cent -- all of whom have stated the exact opposite. I actually tried to look up the details of this claim by Dre, and couldn't find it anywhere. The only thing I found was that he followed Lars Ulrich's original lawsuit against Napster with his own such lawsuit. That was more than a dozen years ago. The market for rappers has not disappeared at all. In fact, it's grown. Why? In large part because of the mixtape world, in which artists put their work out for free -- which has resulted in many of the top rappers today getting discovered, and making a ton of money down the road. So, forgive me for not buying the claim from Dr. Dre when reality has shown the exact opposite.

Modern consumers don't think of the next year – they are hooked on the short-term quick fix. They don't understand the negative impact of piracy.

Of course, we're still waiting for the actual economic evidence of the "negative impact of piracy." Most studies don't seem to show that. They do show that it has caused some difficulty for some record labels, and shifted around where some of the money goes, but that's about it.

Over the last year, I've conducted surveys of the students I've lectured and 90-98% of them, between the ages of 18 and 32, are involved in daily acts of piracy.

Not quite sure where he lectures, but there is absolutely no reasonable study that supports this claim. None. Zilch. Zippo. Music Ally, who's really good on these things, did a survey a few years back, and found that the rate of infringement among younger people was actually decreasing -- and they were looking at those who did it at least once a month (not daily, as Morrison says is the case of the young people he talks to). In 2009, they found that the percentage of teens who file shared once a month was 26% (down from 42% two years earlier). And yet Morrison claims that it's 90 to 98% infringing daily? Meanwhile, a study done at Columbia University last year found that 70% of those 18 to 29 had acquired some infringing content, but that "large scale" piracy was exceptionally rare. Of those in the 18 to 29 year age bracket (closely corresponding to Morrison's 18 to 32) a mere 7% had large digital music collections -- which you would expect if they were sharing every day.

So forgive me for putting on my skeptic's hat, but that 90 to 98% claim doesn't pass even the simplest laugh test.

Oh, and let's not even start discussing the fact that every single study on the subject has shown that "regular" infringers spend more on content than those who don't infringe at all. In other words, if Morrison's number was actually accurate, there likely would be a lot more spending on content.

They no longer pay for music or films or journalism.

Again, the actual evidence has shown that those who infringe actually spend more than those who don't bother. But why let facts get in the way of good rant?

They have a vague idea that what they do is left wing, that it has somehow to do with freedom of speech. And I say to them, but don't you want to make films, be journalists, make music? Where will the money come from if you don't pay? This is a blind generation. And there is no point trying to convince them person-to-person that what they are doing is damaging their own future.

Which of course ignores the fact that many of these kids are likely aware of all sorts of new business models that have been popping up all over the place. They know that the live music market has grown tremendously. They know that there are platforms like PledgeMusic and Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. They know that services like Spotify are now paying larger and larger sums and many users are switching to them away from infringement out of convenience. They know, then, that there's still plenty of money to be made.

The only solution is governmental.

Er, except that we've already seen that the actual solution is not governmental, but is coming from all sorts of amazing innovations and new services that help artists create, distribute, promote and monetize already.

And the problem started with legislation: the DMCA, with Clinton, who was bullied into it by the tech companies in Silicone Valley.

Again, this is an astounding rewriting of history in that it flips the story completely on its head. First of all, it's Silicon Valley, not Silicone. Second, the DMCA was pushed almost exclusively by the entertainment industry, and its passing was celebrated by them, and decried by the tech industry in Silicon Valley who, for years, sought to have it repealed. It's difficult to take Morrison seriously when his key talking point appears to be the opposite of what really happened.

The ruling makes it impossible to sue internet providers for copyright infringement on their own sites. So for example, if I am a band, it will be my responsibility, or that of my record company, to trawl the tens of thousands of rips of my songs and send out writs and sue individuals. Meanwhile, the internet companies who profit from piracy are left scot-free, legally.

First of all, the DMCA is a law, not a "ruling." Second, it is not impossible to sue internet providers for copyright infringement if they're responsible for the infringement. It only says that if they are the tool provider, you don't blame them for how people use the tool -- but you can use the DMCA to have them take down infringing content. And I wonder: how "scot-free" did Veoh get off? That company was sued by Universal Music for copyright infringement and had to shut down because of the legal costs... even though the judge eventually ruled Veoh legal. YouTube has been fighting a massive infringement lawsuit from Viacom. Scot-free? Meanwhile, lots of other companies have been shut down in a post-DMCA era, including Napster, Grokster, Aimster, Kazaa, Morpheus, Zediva, etc. Scot-free? Even if you believe many of these companies should have been found legal, it's clearly 100% false that any company can use the DMCA to avoid legal impact.

And, these days, nearly every major user-generated content site offers a copyright filter, anyway, that lets copyright holders "register" their works and have them blocked.

According to Robert Levine, 75% of all material on YouTube is in breach of copyright. That's a $36bn company, with 75% of its content based on piracy. And don't forget that Google owns YouTube. Also, Google Adsense places advertisements on YouTube pages, and makes money from them, without any proper legal procedure to test whether such pages have been ripped. Google and YouTube also sell ads on pirated pages. And 99% of their income is based on selling ads.

First of all, I'm not sure where the "$36 billion company" part comes from. Google is valued at closer to $200 billion. Perhaps he means just the YouTube part of it, which perhaps is valued at $36 billion, but as a subsidiary of Google I'm not sure that number is accurate. Either way, even if we accept the claim that 75% of the material on YouTube is infringing -- a claim that seems dubious -- that doesn't mean squat. Where is YouTube actually making its money? Videos on YouTube are not all equal.

And, here's the big thing that Morrison leaves out: YouTube long ago instituted ContentID -- a system that lets anyone designate all of the content they hold copyright on, and prevent any of it from being uploaded to YouTube. It also has this amazing thing that lets copyright holders monetize the videos by putting ads on them and having Google give most of that money to the copyright holder. In other words, for many, many copyright holders, YouTube has become a massive profit center. And Morrison doesn't even mention that, bizarrely suggesting that only Google makes money on those ads. Also, while some Google ads have made their way onto sites that offer infringing works, Google is pretty good at policing that. In fact, part of the evidence against Megaupload was the fact that Google cut off their ads on the site. That seems to disprove the basic claims Morrison makes.

The internet is a vast succubus that preys on the content made by the creative industries. Ask yourself why it is that recent culture has ground to a halt.

Er, culture hasn't ground to a halt. More music is being released today than ever before in history. More movies are being released today than ever before in history. More books are being released today than ever before in history. More sources are reporting the news today than ever before in history.

There is nothing radical or hip about being a pirate. Those who think they are being counter-cultural by ripping content off the web are fools, and this includes those who fought against Acta in the name of "freedom of expression". They want the internet to be some kind of 60s utopia where everything and everyone is free. But we still live in capitalism, and if you make culture free, you make it a ghetto.

I have no words to respond to this paragraph, because it makes no sense and has no basis in reality. In all the years that I've been involved in these discussions I have never, not once, heard anyone claim that they're looking for some sort of hippie/utopian vision where "everyone is free." In fact, many of us believe strongly in true free market capitalism, where we try to minimize things like government granted monopolies on abundant goods. And, again, this idea that if culture is "free" it's a ghetto is again proven wrong by reality. Shakespeare wrote in a time without copyright, and seemed to create some pretty compelling cultural artifacts. Oh, and if you look at the data, it sure looks like public domain works sell pretty damn well. The copyright-free world is not a cultural ghetto, and we have empirical evidence to show that.

The internet is not free. It is about as free as the free market. And the companies that run the internet are all massive US corporations. When you rip material on the net, there is a cost. You are handing over you own country's cultural content to US corporations, who will never pay a penny in return.

Really, now? Of course, paying the RIAA/MPAA labels and studios -- who both have a long and very detailed history of failing to pay royalties -- is somehow better? Whereas, when you actually look at the companies that Morrison is slamming, you discover a very different story. We've already discussed Google's ContentID program, which returns a hell of a lot more than "pennies" to content creators. And then you look at things like Kickstarter, in which more than 90% of the revenue goes directly to the artist -- completely flipping the traditional label structure on its head (where standard royalty rates are 10% to 15% and only if you recoup).

After Acta has died, we must go back to US legislation and overturn the DMCA. Sites like YouTube would then be deprived of 75% of their illegal content. It won't be much fun – 75% less fun, but then maybe we will start to understand that we have to pay for culture.

As if ACTA would have changed the DMCA? It would not have. At all. Morrison clearly has not read it. Second: if, in this mythical version of the world, we did in fact "overturn the DMCA" (or, rather the only part he really dislikes -- the safe harbors -- because I imagine he'd throw a complete shit-fit if the rest of the DMCA were overturned), there wouldn't be 75% less content on YouTube. YouTube would basically cease to exist. There would be 100% less content. And you know what? For all of those who want to distribute and share their content, they would no longer get to use YouTube's storage, bandwidth and software for free.

You see, these services he's slamming as somehow profiting unfairly, also happen to provide tremendously useful services for content creators. Before YouTube, if you wanted to post video online, you had to install a complex and expensive video server that had serious compatibility issues, and you had to pay for all that bandwidth at crazy high prices. But YouTube provided all that stuff for free... and made it easy. If he's so concerned about "free," then I assume that he doesn't use any of these free services online.

Over the years, we've seen all sorts of ignorance spouted in support of copyright maximalist positions, but I have to admit that this piece takes all of that to new and never-before-seen levels. As far as I can tell, there is not a single accurate or sensible sentence in the entire piece. Kudos, Ewan Morrison, for setting a new bar in ridiculous articles. All others shall, in the future, be measured on the scale you set in this entirely fact-free piece.

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Not nearly as awkward as the article defending the DMCA's safe harbor provisions, though. I honestly do not understand why people like Mike, who really ought to know better, keep standing up for the DMCA "safe harbor" provision. It hasn't been a good thing for the Internet in any way; it's been a legal catastrophe, a cultural catastrophe, and it serves as the foundation for the worst proposed abuses of SOPA and ACTA. Calling what it does a "safe harbor" is an Orwellian abuse of our language.

The argument seems to be "the safe harbor provision is good because it protects Internet companies from being sued." Well, the thing is, there are worse things out there than getting sued, and one of them is the string that's attached to the "safe harbor," where companies can use the blatantly extralegal DMCA takedown process to censor content on accusation alone.

Let's imagine an America without the safe harbor provision. Some company like YouTube gets sued by the entertainment industry for hosting infringing content. Here's what would happen: The site's defense is "Screw you. We operate as a common carrier and cannot be held legally responsible for the user-generated content that passes through our site. You'll have to go after the users instead." And they would win the case, and it would set a precedent, and today we wouldn't have to put up with a DMCA takedown system that is apparently only used to actually stop infringement about 6% of the time.

The "protection" of the safe harbor provision was already in place under Common Carrier law. All that the safe harbor did for Internet companies was weaken their rights. But it did have one other effect: it introduced the concept of extralegal censorship on accusation alone into law. SOPA and ACTA didn't just get that idea from nowhere; it is built squarely on the foundation of the DMCA!

(Second attempt at posting this, because the first one landed in a moderation trap for having too many links. You'd sorta think that was OK around here, given the way they're in such common use in the main articles, but meh...)

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Conceptually, I agree with what you're saying. But the politics differs.

The "protection" of the safe harbor provision was already in place under Common Carrier law.

There are two problems with this. First, it's not clear that a website such as youtube could qualify as a common carrier, as a "common carrier" refers to a communications channel such as telegraph & telephone.

Second, even if such sites could conceptually qualify, that's pretty much the last thing they want. Even ISPs, who are clearly the sort of companies that could be considered common carriers, don't want this. They would much prefer the safe harbor-type "protection".

The deal is that if you're a "common carrier," that comes with certain restrictions for you. Included in them are things like you must treat all traffic equally. You can't listen into the traffic (except for maintenance purposes). You can't tell your customers that certain kinds of traffic is not allowed.

In short, almost all of the things that people want Net Neutrality to do -- and I agree that the internet would be much better if this were the situation. The ISPs, however, would prefer nearly anything (even draconian IP laws such as the DMCA) over being subject to those restrictions and will fight them tooth and nail.

Really, the safe harbor provisions were the preferred solution from the point of view of the big internet players.

In the DMCA game, the winners/losers broke out like this:

Major media companies: Huge winners
Internet companies: Mostly losers, but safe harbor was a small win
the rest of us: Huge losers

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if money is being made from the exploitation of a creators work, the creator should 1) have consent over the use (except where legally exempted) and 2) be compensated in that value chain.

do you really think that creators should not be protected from the illegal exploitation of their work? why is this ok on the internet but not ok for film studios and tv shows? why is it "sharing and exposure" on the internet but not the same if used in a major motion picture, hit tv show or massive brand commercial? why the double standard? or, do you think that artists should never be paid for the exploitation of their work? In which case, why all the bashing on the RIAA? The paradox of pirate logic never ceases to amaze me.

loads of misinformation from Morrison but 'Modern consumers don't think of the next year – they are hooked on the short-term quick fix' is so wrong. it isn't consumers that are hooked on the 'quick fix' it's the labels. they think the quick fix is to sue members of the public, using an IP address as evidence of copyright infringement, rather than listening to what those people are asking for. if there is any short sightedness, it is the entertainment industries, as usual, that are showing it

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True that!

Also, something similar was mentioned in "Copyright and Innovation: The Untold Story" by Michael A. Carrier. He details a load of interviews from people in the record industry and talks about how their business outlook was always short-term.

Apparently the big wigs were only ever thinking of how to obtain as much profit as possible year-by-year, instead of having a long-term business plan.

"Over the last year, I've conducted surveys of the students I've lectured and 90-98% of them, between the ages of 18 and 32, are involved in daily acts of piracy."

How many of them are also involved in consuming content legally at the same time? How many of them could actually pay for the content at full price if piracy wasn't available? I bet he didn't ask.

"They no longer pay for... films..."

So, The Hunger Games, The Avengers and Snow White And the Huntsman were all big successes at this year's box office, even though their core demographic didn't pay for them at all? Or is he talking out of his ass? I wonder...

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From the whole 'free equals bad' tone of the article, I suspect the question he asks his students isn't "How many of you pirate content?" but rather "How many of you download free shit off the internet?"

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"Over the last year, I've conducted surveys of the students I've lectured and 90-98% of them, between the ages of 18 and 32, are involved in daily acts of piracy."

As someone who was a very devout RIAA supporter ten years ago, I can say that statement, in and of itself, is largely meaningless. I've routinely conducted "surveys" myself, and while the number of people, of all age groups, who "pirate on a daily basis" is indeed up dramatically from ten years ago, he fails to follow this up with an accurate reporting of WHY?

The biggest reason by far is there is people conducting "try before you buy", and most people who conduct this sort of sampling purchase this content if it turns out to be good.

Following close on its heels is "piracy" because in many cases their is simply no legal mechanism (especially outside the US, to purchase certain content people want. If you want people to pay for your content, then you need to actually make it possible for people to give you their money.

Conversely, there is a growing contingent of content creators (Dan Bull is a quick one who comes to mind, but there's are many more examples that show up on Techdirt regularly) who both promote and utilize "piracy" as a marketing tool that bypasses the conventional gatekeepers who refuse to offer them anything short of one-sided, unreasonable deals for anyone outside of a small elite (and even in many of those cases - eminem, def leppard fpr example - those deals stil have serious disadvantages.

Of course his statement can also be followed up with this little nugget:

According to Robert Levine, in his book Free Ride, the music industry in the US has declined by over 55% in the last decade. Film is following with its first decline in recorded history.

Really? Ignoring the silliness about music, which has been thoroughly debunked time and again, let's look at this silliness about movies. Of the top 200 movies in the US, adjusted for inflation (according to Box Office Mojo) the oldest movie on the list dates back to 1937, which gives us 75 years of data to work with.

That should, on average, produce between 2 and 3 top 200 movies a year (and that's not even counting the fact that older movies didn't have TV to compete with, much less cable, DVD, online distribution). so how do newer movies stack up?

So in the last decade, even not accounting for increased competition (TV and such) the last decade should have produced roughly 14.5% of the top 200 movies of all time, adjusted for inflation. Nor is it taking into account most of the top grossing older movies have received multiple releases (like Gone With the Wind get a rerelease like about every ten years or so, and Snow White - according to Box Office Mojo - has made "$114M of its unadjusted $184M since 1983).

Yet movies in the last decade have accounted for 18% of the top 100 and a bit over 26% of the top 200. In fact if you look at the period between 2001 and 2010, movies in the top 200 most years appeared at twice the rate or more than they statistically should have. This despite the multiple release of older movies, massive competition form alternate service (TV, DVD), and massive "piracy).

And that's just domestically, not even taking onto account of the massive expansion of the US movies market overseas. 15 years ago there was no such thing as a billion dollar movies,now there are 12. In fact, Avatar, has made about 20% more money overseas alone than the adjusted gross for Gone With the Wind in the US over the last 70+ years. I also see regular article about regions that are reportedly "hotspots of piracy" like China and Russia, routinely setting box office records for American films.

I could spend hours debunking the claims made here, but I have other projects (at the moments that would be kids) that need attending to, but those two sentences alone let me now there is little that Mr. Morrison has to say that is any real value (at least not in this debate).

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How do you think the "pirates" get the material to make illegal copies? SOMEONE has to go and pay to see the movie so they can pull their cam out and record it in the theater...

I had an interesting dream about this once. I dreamt that I was in a movie theater, where every seat was full, watching a movie, and then noticed that everyone except me was filming the movie. Then I realized that every seat was full at every screening of the movie and everyone was recording everywhere except for me. Then I wondered why it was such a big deal that I wasn't recording it, because everyone else was. Man, I do have strange dreams.

The funny thing is that the MPAA wouldn't have been happy that every seat was full for every showing of the movie, and they were raking in billions, but because everyone was filming the movie. Yet, the way the brain works, we are all kinda "filming" the movie when we watch it, and just knowing myself, I find myself spouting off memorable quotes from movies all the time.

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Great points, though IMHO you left out what's probably the biggest downfall in music industry's profitability - unbundling. Instead of buying a $20 CD to get the track they want, people are buying the track on its own for $1. That *has* to hurt, and it's got sod all to do with piracy. But the industry only has its traditionally low quality thresholds and resistance to new business models to blame for any losses there.

As for the film points, I think that trying to say that the film industry's in trouble right now is the dumbest thing anyone can say. It's in great form, except perhaps for DVD sales. But, there's a multitude of reasons why those sales have dropped, again unrelated to piracy.

In fact, the dumbest thing anyone can do right now is to try and generate sympathy for the movie industry when the 3rd/26th most successful film of all time (depending on if you're looking at adjusted or non-adjusted figures) is still raking in cash and hasn't even hit lucrative secondary markets yet. The Avengers wasn't even the movie most tipped for great success this year - in fact not even the *superhero* movie people expected to hit it big this time last year - and we're not even through the summer season yet...

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More like...I downloaded Battlestar Galactica, loved it, then bought the Blu-ray box set, new.
I downloaded Dragon Age Origins, played it, loved it, then bought it new (only to have to wait 2 weeks for the DLC servers to work...yes, the legit product was worse than the downloaded version).
Without the initial download, no sale would have occurred (I was prejudiced against BG, but after watching I changed my mind).

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You could have just said [insert bad analogy here that equates copyright infringement with the theft of physical goods despite them being legally and technically different in nature here] and we would have understood sooner that you didn't know what you were talking about.

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"See how it works? "

No. I see an idiotic analogy that misses every point possible, but not how something works.

The fact is, most people have NEVER bought all the music they consume on a regular basis. Mixtapes, radio, TV, borrowed items... everybody consumes more than they pay for directly, and have done since recorded music was invented. That people happen to consume music through downloads as well nowadays points to a gap in the market that should be filled by legitimate means.

Sadly, idiots like you and the author of the article use it as an excuse to attack those same people who are also buying music. I listen to 12 albums this month but only bought 8? We can argue the morality, but that's still a paying customer you're attacking, and they may just decide not to buy that 8 next month instead of buying an extra 4... Guess why the "sue the pirates but refuse to service them legally" strategy has spectacularly failed?

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"...everybody consumes more than they pay for directly, and have done since music was invented."

FTFY. :) People have been listening to live music for free since... cave man times, I expect.

I'm sure somebody will point out that commercial radio is paid for by commercials, but I should point out that I rarely, if ever, buy anything from commercials.

On the other hand, I've bought many 45 singles of popular songs, and also bought quite a few albums of groups I've liked. I never would have bought half a dozen Frank Zappa albums if I hadn't heard "Camarillo Brillo" on WMMR (before they went Pop in the '70s, they were a really great underground station). Ditto Headhunters and "Chameleon". I've bought most of Michael Franks' works until 1990 because I heard "When The Cookie Jar Is Empty" (OK, to be accurate, I bought Burchfield Nines, and liked it enough to buy One Bad Habit, and so on). And then there's David Wilcox.

I've bought at least two copies of Year of the Cat in spite of the fact that I first recorded the entire album off the radio. (I've even gone to see Al Stewart live.)

Apparently the studios want to stop this behavior. Somehow the fact that it's bits on a flash drive instead of modulated radio waves makes it wrong. Even transferring it to sticky tape and rust offends them, but boy oh boy, turn it into computer bits and it goes from criminal to felonious. Even treasonable.

Our business model: sue our customers, and prevent them from accessing our product.

Re: Re:

Correct! Because downloading an unlicensed copy and then buying a licensed one nets the studio zero. They don't make any money off the sale if you view the movie first. In spite of the fact that the studio has received the exact same amount of money either way.

Yeah.

I'm still trying to figure out the logistics. Maybe you can use another bogus analogy to explain this one?

Re:

Re:

"Real, logical debate would be nice"

It would. The problem is that many of the facts really aren't on their side. Half the anti-piracy argument is an emotional one to begin with - it feels "wrong" that people are "stealing". They also assume that it's "us vs. them" - that people who pirate never buy and vice versa, that anti-ACTA feelings are bought by Google rather than being based on fact. That the issue is far more complex than that gets lost in the emotional response.

Past that, their "facts" are either faulty or based on very shaky foundations. For example, they assume that all pirated copies equal lost sales - demonstrably false. They assume that any lost sales they can quantify are due to piracy rather than the many, many, other factors involved (e.g. unbundling and competition for music sales).

So, they start from an emotional point, make assumptions that don't bear any relation to reality, and then assume that anyone disagreeing with them must be a pirate. It's no wonder that intelligent debate can be so thin on the ground, and a shame that such blatant idiocy is given credence by so many.

Re:

The truly sad thing is that Morrison believes he is arguing on the facts.

He defends copyright "because it is the lifeblood of the creative industries", yet conveniently ignores that much of Disney's early works were completely based on works in the public domain. Does he honestly believe that Avatar is a completely new creative work?

He laments the decline of movie studios, yet ignores that one of the reasons why the movie studios relocated to Hollywood is because the movie studios did not want to pay royalties to Edison. Pirates!

He ignores the recording industry practice of payola - that's right, record companies paid radio stations money to play their songs or to place their songs higher on so-called 'hit lists'.

He ignores Hollywood Accounting and how a top blockbuster movie "loses" money, screwing anyone that signed for a net portion of revenue.

He ignores that record companies and royalty collectors often can't 'find' artists to pay them their royalties or that royalties are distributed not based on the actual play of a song, but on the sales of the song. Sorry new band, but the royalties collected for your song go to U2.

in the words of a lot of people, you can fix ignorance, but you can't fix stupid. morrison takes stupidity and attempts to use it as a nail to hold up his arguments. however he fails because he attempted to use his penis to hammer it into the wall.

I demand a law that makes is mandatory to mark any product or article with a EM rating of 6+ as a cognitive hazard. I do not want to experience again the reality-warping headache I got just trying to understand what Morrison was thinking when he wrote that.

He also seems, word for word, the rants found on trichordist whose blog we're all so familiar with.

Perhaps he also relies on Levine's misstatements and distortions for his rants. One musician, one author same source it seems.

No amount of pointing out that Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Dante and countless others wrote classics of literature that speak to various natures of the human condition without copyright. The authors of the Old Testament wrote about the relationship between God and the Hebrews mixing in vast aspects of the human condition and behaviors. For example David's adultery and his murderous orders to his troops to let her husband, to then one of his best friends and advisers, be left to fend for himself on the battlefield where he died. More correctly was murdered on David's orders no matter who did the actual killing. All while slowly moving from the status of God, "I am", as a tribal god to a universal one, open to all which set the stage for an internet Rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, to focus on the love commandment already stressed in Leviticus to the centre of the stage and stress the universality of God, "I am", open to all -- Jews and Gentiles (pagans) alike.

Biblical heros were humanly flawed not superhumans and frequently paid a very high price for their heroism and teachings. Rather as heros still do.

All without copyright.

Artists painted, sculptures were created, music was written and performed, all without benefit of copyright. It would seem, then, that the ancient world, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and enlightenment were devoid of culture. After all, it was all free, right? And that's just taking a highly euro-centric view of the world by leaving out Egypt, Persia, Babylon and China to name but a few. All cultural wastelands because copyright didn't exist. They just HAD to be.

After all Levine and Morrison say so. They insist on it.

Too bad it didn't work out in the way that Morrison fantasies. Far, far from it. Unless, of course, the rest of us are suffering from some mass hallucination.

The cultural disaster is that people seriously suggest the "creative industries" and their assembly-line, lowest common denominator "content" not only represents the totality of modern human culture, but should continue to do so forever.

Actually....

Cultural Disaster?

The internet has been around for 20 years so far and the culture hasn't disastered so far. Doesn't even show signs of it, no cracks or crevices. In fact, I would say culture is heading in the opposite direction.

Re: Cultural Disaster?

Thinking about this further, what does a cultural disaster look like? Can we get it defined? Is it loud and noisy? Are there lots of explosions? Or is it quiet like a mouse squeak? Will we know it when it happens or is it something that we will realize after the fact? Does it happen quickly or slowly?

Anyone who studies culture and art should understand how important audiences are to a work. The audience makes the work popular. The audience makes a sequel possible. The audience buys the tickets to the show. The audience participates in the culture that is a back and forth in which the publication of a piece of art is only one element. But the entertainment industry and its shills ignore this fact and pretend that the audience is just a voiceless mass of sponges that just mindlessly soak up the culture that is thrown at them and do nothing with it.

This all seems to be a result of the fact that the entertainment industry pretends that they're trying to gift the world with culture for a price, but they're only interested in the money and if you'd pay them for absolute shit, they'd sell it to you. The business majors and lawyers who run that empire aren't interested in culture because they don't understand anything that doesn't have a price tag affixed to it.

Re: Re: Cultural Disaster?

Re: Cultural Disaster?

Haven't you noticed that every major social change in history causes some people to panic and claim that the end of the world is nigh? Hell, philosophers complained about "kids today" in ancient Greece.

Re:

Re:

"so, you ignore his evidence and insert your own, you dont like his, but you like yours, sounds like your both spewing the same crap from both corners of the same mouth"

Here's what you should do. Click the link to read the actual article on the Guardian website. How many times do you see a hyperlink (a word/words in blue, meaning you can click on them and go to another website)?
Once. To link to a single book.

Now, let's compare Mike Masnick. 17 Hyperlinks. SEVENTEEN. Yes, many of those were links to other Techdirt articles, but those articles themselves have links to support what's being written. There's not only Techdirt links. This article itself has links to other sites.

Mike took the time to do research and provide links to support his argument. The other guy didn't.

Re: Ever wonder...

Re: Re: Ever wonder...

After the "Gropenhagen" incident where anyone able to prove they were from the COP 15-meeting could get free sex from the hookers in copenhagen, the politicians are getting closer to illegalizing prostitution. Some might argue that they are jealous...

Ewan Morrison do yourself a favor and issue a public apology it's the only way you're going to save face. If you wait or just pretend you won like ol Charles we will view you as a fucking idiot for the rest of your life.

Oh yeah btw I just canceled my Guardian sub. I can't believe you people let assholes that want to end freedom work for you.

Re:

Oh yeah btw I just canceled my Guardian sub. I can't believe you people let assholes that want to end freedom work for you.

Oh, don't do that. We want idiots and assholes to say publicly that they want to end freedoms. It helps us know who our enemies are. The funny thing is that these guys show their true hypocritical colors when they push to end everyone elses freedoms while retaining their own.

My father used to say that the three most dreaded words in modern society were "That offends me." I think I believe it has changed to "There should be a law..." since what comes after that usually is so evil, so unnecessary and so hypocritical.

Every generation....

Google is an unfair whipping boy

And, here's the big thing that Morrison leaves out: YouTube long ago instituted ContentID -- a system that lets anyone designate all of the content they hold copyright on, and prevent any of it from being uploaded to YouTube. It also has this amazing thing that lets copyright holders monetize the videos by putting ads on them and having Google give most of that money to the copyright holder. In other words, for many, many copyright holders, YouTube has become a massive profit center. And Morrison doesn't even mention that, bizarrely suggesting that only Google makes money on those ads. Also, while some Google ads have made their way onto sites that offer infringing works, Google is pretty good at policing that. In fact, part of the evidence against Megaupload was the fact that Google cut off their ads on the site. That seems to disprove the basic claims Morrison makes.

Thanks for mentioning that. You could have also mentioned Google Play. Many of the copyright maximalists love to demonize Google as profiting off of Artist's and Songwriter's works, but with Google Play and Adsense, they're actually monetizing those songwriters' works (like mine). What these maximalists do is say that a feeding hand is starving them! Talk about misrepresentation...

Morrison

"As a journalist, novelist and a friend of many who 'used to be' musicians, I see the wrong in this."

As an aspiring novelist, terrible journalist and a music lover that doesn't know anyone who makes music, I see some serious wrong in Morrison's story, and you really did point out what's wrong with his argument, Mike.

First off, I want to say that if Morrison is this worried about journalists, then shouldn't he worry about himself? After all, he is a "journalist," right? Though after reading this, I could come to the conclusion that he isn't a journalist at all. It sounds more like your regular troll that comes on here and whines about paywalls, copyrights, Big Whatever (bob...), and Apple being "innovating." Really this sounds like a shill complaining about something he hasn't read, and if he calls himself a journalist he should have put some sources to back his claim! Oh sure, he did his own survey... then can you back it up by showing you did this survey instead of telling everyone about it? Then again, I don't think a lot of people who spend their time on the Internet will believe such a number in the first place... and that goes for the majority.

"... internet piracy will lead to the decline of film, the novel, journalism and music on an industrial scale."

What made me laugh about this is the fact that he said "the novel" instead of "novels." If he is worried about the other things he listed, then should he care about the rest of the book industry? Is he that worried about his own book getting pirated? Is he missing out on all of those "pennies" going into his bank account? Honestly I don't care about his own book, even before this story, so what makes him think that I'll care for his story now?

"They no longer pay for music or films or journalism."

OK technically you are paying for all of that. It's something called the INTERNET!!! Granted I don't like to pay for my music, but if I wanted to, I'll be willing to give a few of my dollars to the artists that I enjoy to help support them. For film, I'll be willing to watch it for free online and if I like it, I'll buy a copy of the movie and have it available to watch whenever, wherever I want! Journalism? ... Probably not after what I read from Morrison.

"The internet is a vast succubus that preys on the content made by the creative industries."

OK one) how did my creation got out onto the Internet before I could introduce her? Two) is this a dream? I thought succubi live in people's dreams to steal the life essence of men through sexual intercourse... And three) is Morrison confusing that with some porn sites?

"There is nothing radical or hip about being a pirate."

Thank you Morrison for putting the 4Kids' One Piece Rap in our heads. [/s]

"The internet is not free."

Well no duh! Tell us Morrison, how do you pay to get yourself on the Internet, and how much? And speaking of which, that free Internet at public places... yes it's free to those going to this places, but it's not free to those who's hosting it. They got to pay for it as well!

"The only solution is governmental."

And that's a scary thought. If the "only" solution is for the government to get involve, especially if it's a global involvement, then we should be more worried about what our governments censoring what they think is harmful to them instead to us Users. I... I really can't say anything else about that. There's no way someone, except maybe the shills or trolls or bobs, could defend such an asinine idea and allow our governments have a direct control over what we can and can't see.

Overall, Morrison has a really screw-up outlook on this whole ordeal, and I doubt he's going to stop. When the next big bill steps into the spotlight (IPAA), he's bound to come crawling back and praise it in all its golden crapiness. And maybe then, we'll have another go at tearing his logic apart and point out the many flaws, along with his lack of facts, to an arrogant man who, like many supporters of SOPA, ACTA and TPP, continues to walk blindly at the golden poop and refuse to see what it truly is.

Re:

funfunfufngnruf

I think the problem with the movie industry these days is not money. I think the moguls just want to retain the power they have over the system, where they can demand windows and release dates and copyright laws and license deals etc.
They want to be the power of the system and have power to stop anyone they do not like or even people they do, just to show how powerful they are. The are against piracy not because they have lost income, they know about all of the increase in profits when something is pirated and therefore advertised.It is because piracy takes every last bit of power over the content from them.

When you see an article like the above bear this in mind, these are people who are not fighting for more money, they know how to funnel money away from the creators to there accounts, they are angry/upset/furious that with the ease of a few clicks with your mouse you can have access to there content.

Just think of what you would pay for a high quality download of a movie directly from the studios. $2 -$5 i thought until i remembered i could rent it for $1 , so even me not wanting to really pay would be prepared to pay more than i was paying, well not now that i have realized it but hey if they had implemented a system where i could donate to a studio after watching a movie i would probably pay a little more than i payed when i rented a movie.

This is awesome. Morrison responds to the commenters on his article later on in the comments section. I liked this gem:

'outdated business models'. you should tread carefully my friend. It might turn out that your multi-million business which is 100% dependent on the internet is a bubble industry. I would hazard a guess that you are involved in Social Media. The bubble on that one is going to pop in the next year. I advise looking for a new job if you're involved with that.

The net has trouble monetizing. We're going through a stage now when an entire hype industry has been based on the promise that eventually, Social Media will be able to sell products. There is little or no evidence to really support this. Keep an eye out for my next article - Six Million Authors in Search of a Tweet. And twitter me @MrEwanMorrison if you want to get some more tips.

Re:

Wow, I love it... He makes an assumption about the guy, attacks him based on that assumption and considers that the end of the argument. To top that, after belittling social media, he insists people use social media to contact him!

I guess that's why you don't see many distortions and strawmen on the pro-internet/new models "side" - the people on the "other side" are already ridiculous enough on the their own.

Please repeal the DMCA

I honestly do not understand why people like Mike, who really ought to know better, keep standing up for the DMCA "safe harbor" provision. It hasn't been a good thing for the Internet in any way; it's been a legal catastrophe, a cultural catastrophe, and it serves as the foundation for the worst proposed abuses of SOPA and ACTA. Calling what it does a "safe harbor" is an Orwellian abuse of our language.

The argument seems to be "the safe harbor provision is good because it protects Internet companies from being sued." Well, the thing is, there are worse things out there than getting sued, and one of them is the string that's attached to the "safe harbor," where companies can use the blatantly extralegal DMCA takedown process to censor content on accusation alone.

Let's imagine an America without the safe harbor provision. Some company like YouTube gets sued by the entertainment industry for hosting infringing content. Here's what would happen: The site's defense is "Screw you. We operate as a common carrier and cannot be held legally responsible for the user-generated content that passes through our site. You'll have to go after the users instead." And they would win the case, and it would set a precedent, and today we wouldn't have to put up with a DMCA takedown system that is apparently only used to actually stop infringement about 6% of the time.

The "protection" of the safe harbor provision was already in place under Common Carrier law. All that the safe harbor did for Internet companies was weaken their rights. But it did have one other effect: it introduced the concept of extralegal censorship on accusation alone into law. SOPA and ACTA didn't just get that idea from nowhere; it is built squarely on the foundation of the DMCA!

Re: Ewan Morrison's MO

It continues...

I've been on an End of Books reading tour since August and it turns out that what the internet gurus say about consumers being more willing to pay for events, speeches and gigs, rather than buying cultural objects, is now becoming true.

So there you are - a ready made quote to prove Morrison wrong from....Morrison!

Re: Ewan Morrison's MO

Although it is worth noting - HE didn't make money self-publishing, so he assumes nobody else can. The fact that he's either crap at marketing or just tries publishing crap nobody wants to buy probably never even occurred to him.

Just... brilliant

Really a spectacularly good overview of copyright shenanigans, I learnt quite a lot here and will be reusing soon under the heading of my own opinion; to keep with the spirit of things... Sometimes it takes a real tool bleating an uninformed diatribe to bring out people with valuable opinions and facts, so Ewan could actually be commended for his borderline fascist dipshittery.

How do you define piracy?

The quote, "Over the last year, I've conducted surveys of the students I've lectured and 90-98% of them, between the ages of 18 and 32, are involved in daily acts of piracy." Really is the problem. We all commit technical copyright violations dozens of times daily. Maybe he's including anyone watching user-uploaded music on YouTube, or copying & pasting several paragraphs of an article (fair use be dammed). Recording something on the TiVo to watch later, or *gasp* borrowing a CD from a friend. Dig deep enough, and I'd be surprised if EVERYONE wasn't committing "piracy" a dozen times a day.

That's a symptom of a broken legal system, it's not a symptom of some deranged culture. The laws are already out of whack with reality, and all ACTA fans want to do is declare by fiat more & more ethical, natural, moral behavior be classified as criminal.

"In throwing out the Acta (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) bill on Wednesday, MEPs in the European parliament have unwittingly signed their countries up for a future in which internet piracy will lead to the decline of film, the novel, journalism and music on an industrial scale. "

WTF are these guys paying attention to? Screw entertainment industry crybaby woes, the WORLD's economy is screwed by something as little as the US agreeing to let China lower the interest rate on it's last giant loan, weaken the dollar substantially...again, and crash a few more ENTIRE countries economies.... This is like the a world scale magic show, distracting people just long enough to pull off the obvious trick that will 'surprise' everyone.

Actual productive industries (this should be an epiphany for anyone but there are other things that are signficantly more productive than the next transformers/whatever movie) are being crippled by a bad patent system that is being expanded both in rules and enforcement(ie convincing more countries to 'play along'). Is it because politicians are surrounded by lawyers all day that they don't see how destructive it is that companies are stuck in constant legal battles over patents, and the untold amounts of money they spent on lawyers could have been used to, oh say... NOT lay off employees that would have been otherwise working. Right or wrong, if you have multiple companies making similar products (I don't know where in their life people got the idea that you win the 'idea lottery' you get a free ride for life, without ever doing the work, much less continue doing the work), you get so much more than clutter on a store shelf. You have MULTIPLE HR departments, actually MULTIPLE of every job that is needed for a company two run because you have MULTIPLE companies working. When your economy is full of unemployment, restricting/destroying a larger number businesses to save a small number of businesses sounds like a fast and easy way to increase your economic problems. And don't "but ____ big company employs so many more people" me, Take a big company, smash it into little companies, and the result is you'll have more required jobs (you lose efficiencies that come from large scale) and increased competition.

Why has the recent assumption been that all work is created for profit. Do these people really think that because piracy exists that people are never going to pick up a guitar or write a story anymore. What about the efforts to invent or make scientific discoveries. The laughable part is that the people truly motivated to do those things don't give a damn about something trivial like "piracy losses" and hardly are motivated by money to do the things they do that change the world.

Re:

The laughable part is that the people truly motivated to do those things don't give a damn about something trivial like "piracy losses" and hardly are motivated by money to do the things they do that change the world.

Re:

This, a hundred, thousand, millions times this.

The people I hang out with that make music (there's a few loosely knit bands among a group of friends) do it because the music they make is enjoyable to them. The 4 or 5 of them like to get together and jam. And they do. And they hole up in cabins for a weekend and make music.

The DMCA blows

For the "copyleft," the DMCA was considered a huge failure.

It still is.

I am truly baffled by how often I hear the maximalists talk about the DMCA as some kind of huge concession to the minimalists when it was exactly the opposite. The DMCA was an enormous win for corporate media, and to treat it as anything else is simply lying.

Beer

Everything on the net, from now on, will be free.They want the internet to be some kind of 60s utopia where everything and everyone is free. But we still live in capitalism, and if you make culture free, you make it a ghetto.The internet is not free. It is about as free as the free market.

Mike, you missed a key point: This guy doesn't know the meaning of the word 'free'. He is interchanging 'free as in beer' for 'free as in freedom' all throughout his rant. If you substitute libre for gratis:

Everything on the net, from now on, will be libre.
Excellent! Basically, only dictatorships and heavy-handed constitutional republics would have a problem with this.

They want the internet to be some kind of 60s utopia where everything and everyone is libre. But we still live in capitalism, and if you make culture libre, you make it a ghetto.
Well, using the correct words makes this statement even more insane than it already was, if that's possible.

The internet is not libre. It is about as libre as the free market.
He's right about this, unfortunately, but we're trying to get it back there, inch by inch.

Re: Beer

"He is interchanging 'free as in beer' for 'free as in freedom' all throughout his rant."

Very good point, actually. For example, I don't think I've ever heard anyone arguing for a *gratis* internet, and most people (even so-called pirates) still pay for their connection, etc. Many also subscribe to additional services, fund Kickstarter projects and so on. However, a *libre* internet is very much something that most people in the know will argue for, and I'm yet to hear a good argument as to why it should not remain so. Well, apart from those who think they'll make more money by building walled gardens, etc...

Morrison makes it clear that 'free stuff on the Interwebz' is a clear sign of the Apocolypse, so I assume he got paid to write this. In that case, isn't there some sort of defective-product/LemonLaw that would let us get our money back?

OTOH, when you write

here in the US, the first major democracy...

Um, wow. Isn't that Morrison guy from some place that invented a thing called 'Parliment'??

No sense of history

That's what you get when you apply a 4 year old mentality to the process of invention. It all belongs to you. No one else helped you. You were not inspired by anything else. You did succeed because of the work of others you built on.

Yesterday doesn't exist.

He's a possessive control freak because he doesn't acknowledge that stuff doesn't just sprout randomly from the ether. Everything is built on the past. Doesn't matter if you are talking pop songs or nations.

Re: The Future

The Guardian's Guest

I remember coming across this article that Mike has now replied to the day after the European Parliament rejected ACTA in a huge victory. I was then browsing all the ACTA news and seeing how different services reported this event.

It is then I read this article by Ewan Morrison which was The Guardian's second ACTA related news. I can say reading this pure RIAA propaganda left me very mad indeed and so much so I went on to create an account with The Guardian just to reply to this hyperbole.

Well what can we say when Ewan Morrison is simply a guy who knows completely nothing about what is really going on but in his anger about losing his new "piracy whacking tool" he spouts out his ignorance in a series of pet theories devoid from reality and mixes in rants against any other service he has a grudge against.

Yes, ACTA failed to pass, so no new rap artist ever again, seems to well sum this one up.

Not read all this yet, but with ref to the headline which the writer then doesn't back up...

The Guardian sub editors are notorious for using a headline or byline to either over hype the subject of a piece, misrepresent it totally or possibly they don't read the article at all. Maybe they pick words out a bran tub.

I go there everyday and everyday there's at least one instance of "wha... but the headline said this article was about [x, y or z]."

It's almost tabloid at times. But whatever else this guy's faults are, don't blame him for a headline he didn't write.

It's statements like these that reaffirm for us that laws like ACTA and SOPA need to be stopped.

Sure, darryl and his ilk constantly spam the site with claims that ACTA is more about IP, that we're freetards over-looking into things. And then we have idiots like this who claim that the death of SOPA and ACTA mean the death of various creative industries, or CEOs lamenting that the death of SOPA meant that they can no longer silence criticism in the form of parody or satire as they wish. Which, I believe, is a clear sign that the noble pursuits of such laws was never their original purpose to begin with, but to enforce ridiculous restrictions on everyone else in the interest of an extremely small minority. This would be also why supporters of such laws insist that no one can offer input on such laws, because we see these laws for what they are really going to be used for.

(words fail me)

First of all, yes Morrison's column is indeed one of the most hyperbolic and surreal pieces of misinformation I have read in a year of extreme misinformation spread by MPAA, Creative (corporate) America, USCoC, etc. I nominate Ewan Morrison for the grand prize of malicious goofballery and wonder if he is perhaps seeking a job with the MPAA or it's U.K. equivalent.

Second, and as someone who works in the industry, I want to point out that with few exceptions (big budget network TV series being one) the old business models are still working quite well to generate record profits, despite the impact of piracy. New funding models are generating additional opportunities on top of that, not replacing it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.